In No Hurry

The sense of the holiday season that everyone else is shoving down everyone's throat is not upon me. I get annoyed and angry at hearing Christmas music and seeing Christmas items for sale before Thanksgiving and get especially bothered if it is before Halloween.

This year though, I feel nothing.

I am not irritated or bothered, nor am I inspired and uplifted. And for me, this is bad because it is, after all, the first week of Advent (for those of you who follow the liturgical calendar).

Our family tradition is to be total and absolute slackers and wait until the last minute to get our tree. In doing that, we keep the tree around well into January... at least until after Geoff's birthday which is the 7th. While I go out to put a bag of trash in the bin on December 26th and I look around the neighborhood and see all those lovely trees by the side of the road, discarded like used wrapping paper, I know that I'll go in my house and for another two weeks I'll bask in the glow of silly blinking racing lights and ornaments gathered over the 20 years of marriage and kids.

Right now though, my life feels so blah. So uninspired, so useless, so empty. I'm watching people on facebook and in person rushing around getting ready and I can't help but feel "what for?" Everyone is rabid and running around shopping and getting ready, and TV commercials hyping the big sales are just EVERYWHERE. Doug noted that about 10 years ago NObody outside of retail used the term Black Friday, but everyone does now. And it isn't just Black Friday. It's Black Seven Days or Ten Days or Black Month... whatever they can do to frenzy up the masses. I know they're trying really hard to make the economy better, to have businesses survive. I realize this. But it is cultish and horrifying to me to witness it.

The one thing that did strike me about the whole super hyped up Black Whatever Day frenzy was a quote someone had on their facebook that said "If you can get up to go to a store opening at 4am the day after Thanksgiving but can't ever get out of bed to go to 10am services on Sunday, Behold Your Idol."

So I'll sit back and watch everyone do things their way, for whatever reason or motivation they have, and I'll look to develop some of my own for our own little traditions. I'll look to making week 2 of Advent tidier, week 3 will be bringing Jess home... and getting a tree. And week 4 will lead up to Christmas.

All in due time.